The Last Stand is the vehicle that former California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger selected
to make his return as an action-film star. If this is how he plans to resume his acting career,
Schwarzenegger should seriously consider a return to politics.

What passes as the plot for this stinker has him playing the sheriff of a sleepy little town on
the Mexican border. It’s not just sleepy but almost comatose, because most of the townspeople have
left on a weekend trip for a high-school football game.

The quiet is disrupted when the town becomes the spot where the escaped leader of a drug cartel
wants to drive his stolen missilelike sports car across the border. Only the sheriff, his deputies
and a couple of rejects from
The Magnificent Seven can stop him.

There are so many problems with this movie that even a monthlong filibuster couldn’t hit them
all, but here are the really low points:

• Writers Andrew Knauer and Jeffrey Nachmanoff set up an absurd premise and make stupid moves
just to keep the plot going. • The film grinds to a halt when an FBI agent (Forest Whitaker)
explains an idiotic plot point by saying the drug boss is a part-time race-car driver. This is the
only reason the drug lord blows through the desert in a car that might as well have a flashing
light on top that says, “Escapee Inside”?

• For the setup of a
High Noon-style standoff, it is explained that only two streets go through town. No one
seems to think about how it would have been easier just to go around the 30 buildings in the
burg.

• Director Jee-woon Kim treats Schwarzenegger as if he is 30 rather than 65. Instead of playing
off the dry humor that has become a Schwarzenegger trademark, the director acts as if he has Jason
Statham playing the small-town hero. But Schwarzenegger doesn’t even move as well as Jason
Alexander. Even with sharp editing, Schwarzenegger looks as if he is walking through mud while tied
to the dead weight of all the work that didn’t get done during his days in office.

• Johnny Knoxville continues to prove that, unless a car battery is connected to his manhood, he
has no acting skills. The only way Knoxville can play his character, a gun lover, is by channeling
Murdock from
The A-Team. Knoxville at least proves there are worse actors than Schwarzenegger.

• The film is loaded with stereotypes and poorly staged action scenes. The dialogue is laughable
when it’s supposed to be serious and bland when it’s supposed to be funny.

Schwarzenegger always told fans that he’d be back.
The Last Stand proves he was making a threat, not a promise. Any such future movies should
be terminated.